


Not If It's You

by WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blood Loss, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depiction of illness, M/M, Sick Boris, Sort of? - Freeform, Underage Drinking, general idiot pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch
Summary: “Everything hurts,” he whines and tosses himself about some more before settling down on the other side of the bed. He blindly reaches out an arm behind himself and yanks a pillow over to him.“Where I hit you yesterday?”“No, everywhere, Potter. I fucking just said everywhere.” He spits out, his ire trailing off in a low groan.“What’d you drink then? You high?”All that results from that question is a scoff that seems to call me stupid for even having suggested that maybe a copious amount of alcohol mixed with bags of colorful pills could have made him feel a little less than stellar.“So you're sick?”____Boris is ill, Theo's parents are gone, and Theo is left to handle it himself.
Relationships: Theodore Decker & Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	Not If It's You

I awake to a dull repetitive pounding against my back. 

“Boris, I'm fucking tired.” I groan face down into the pillow, inhaling the unwashed smell of the bed; cheap beer, the scent of my soap I have forced Boris to use, and cigarette ash. The kicking dies down and Boris mutters something to himself in nonsense Polish. I turn to look at him, the rusted springs of the mattress crying out at every movement. 

The clear moonlight of the desert night, unhindered by clouds or smog, falls softly upon his sleeping form, casting gentle shadows on otherwise harsh features. Looking down at the moonlit flesh of his sprawled out body, I find I’m not really all that annoyed with his kicking.

I readjust myself, come to rest my cheek upon crossed arms. The cool skin of my exposed forearms is a welcome respite from the warm sheets, and I settle down facing Boris. 

I watch the minute movements of his face. His lips, pouty in sleep, twitch slightly with each inhale and little micro-expressions flit over his features. Phantasms of smiles cross his lips only to fade just as quickly. He smiles so much more sweetly in sleep; there is a certain childlike, unguarded nature in the quirk of his lips. Boris soon snatches away my moment of silent reverence as he rolls himself over in a fit of discontented sighs. 

The creaking of the bed continues as he tosses about for a moment longer.

He stills, and so I let myself slide closer to him under the covers again. It only takes a few seconds until Boris reaches out in his sleep for me; I just happen to be the closest thing to him. Maybe a pillow would do just as well. I wonder, as I do every night when Boris curls his lanky body around mine, when this contact will become normal. When will his touch stop causing whole-body tremors and the seizing up my heart and lungs and throat? 

Boris’s lazy, sleepy touch was, for some completely disarming reason, just as potent as any of his experimental cocktails of vodka and beer. 

I picture myself passing out like some victorian Damsel at the brush of his hand; a laugh comes unbidden and I stifle it with my fist. My tongue touches scraped up skin and my laughter morphs into a hiss. This state of constant injury should faze me more than it does. Then again, if you spend enough time with “look at my broken ribs, look at my scars, look at my scrapes and cuts and bruises” Boris, something so menial as bloody knuckles seems too insignificant to treat. 

Boris runs a hand up my chest and presses his face into the crook of my neck. The stuttering sound of my shallow breathing cuts through the otherwise silent air of the room. I attempt to hold my body still, ignoring the grasping motion of his hands against the skin of my chest. His breath comes hot against my ear, and as Boris curls further into me, legs entangling with my own; his lips brush just below my ear. 

I jerk my head away, my heart pounds as if I have just run the few miles home from school in the heat of the desert sun. The imaginary pounding of my feet against the pavement sets the rhythm of my kicking heartbeat. My sudden motion does not wake him, and soon he has comfortably pressed his head into the space between my shoulder blades. I breathe out a breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding. I drift back to sleep. 

In my dream I am blind and choking. Something like ash fills my lungs. I can’t exhale; the burning smoke liquefies within me and settles heavy in the cavity of my chest. With every cough and fit of spasms my lungs only fill more and more. I can feel the pressure building, my ribs seem to creak and groan with the effort of holding all that wet stuff in; wet stuff coming up my throat and tasting of copper.

Suddenly, I am aware that it is not smoke, but blood that fills my lungs. The crushing weight is not from within me but from above; I am trapped. The black vale before my eyes lifts and I tilt my head with difficulty around the hazy room. Sounds of thunder echo, and the air of the room is dark as a storm could. The smell of burning wood, and plaster, and skin.

It’s the gallery. I tilt my head again, the pain sharp and acrid, and notice how long my blood-smeared hair is. I can make out my own pink scarf beside my head, gored and ruined. And then I am screaming, for Theo. Theo who is not me, but my son. My son I left alone, my son who might be dead. My son with the glasses and oversized jacket and adorably prominent nose. My son who is probably bleeding out, alone. I can’t stop screaming and screaming, and blood is filling my mouth and--

The pounding of his feet against me is harsher. The pain of it pulls me from my nightmare and I try to settle back into the warm body behind me. My skin, now cold and clammy, sticks to the sheets below me. I try to lift myself up but tremors overtake my body, and I can’t seem to move my prickling limbs. To lay still and ride out the static waves of awful nervous energy is all I can do. The crackling current of anxiety easily overloads the fragile system of my brain, and I lay staring up at my ceiling reliving everything.

All the while Boris kicks me. I want to hiss at him, to scream at him, to hit him back until he stops. I want to throw him in the pool with the awful box tv that sat discarded in the recesses of my room tied to his ankle. 

My lungs and heart work overtime to return to a normal rhythm.

The kicking doesn’t stop. How hard is it to just be still? The spark of anger compels me to sit. I throw the blankets off us, turn a sharp gaze on Boris. 

“Boris. Stop.” I hiss at him, vision blurry without my glasses. I can’t be sure whether or not his eyes open at my words.

He slowly rises, tilting his head back with such violence, I fear he might break his neck. 

The movement violently tosses the unruly mass of his curls out of his face, and the coils that still cling to him he roughly shoves away. Finally, he tosses one look of annoyance at me, sneer and all, only to flop back down in a fit of groans. He presses two shaky hands against his face and begins rubbing. 

“Fucking look at me! I'm exhausted, and…” I want to tell him about the nightmare and how awful his kicking was but Boris raises his voice above mine.

“Everything hurts,” he whines, and tosses himself about some more before settling down on the other side of the bed. 

“Where I hit you yesterday?” 

“No, everywhere, Potter. I fucking just said everywhere.” He spits out, his ire trailing off in a low groan. 

“What’d you drink then? You high?”

All that results from that question is a scoff that seems to call me stupid for even having suggested that maybe copious amount of alcohol mixed with bags of colorful pills could have made him feel a little less than steller. 

“So you're sick?” I ask, frankly annoyed with his two am melodrama. 

He doesn’t answer, only curls tighter into himself, his breathing harsh and his body rigid. He holds himself so tightly that I can see the slight tremor of tension along the razor's edge outline of his body.

I am just about ready to turn my back on him and settle down as best I can, when I hear a single sob and watch the telltale jerk of his shoulders. I soften immediately. 

Slowly, I edge my way over to him. The cold expanse of mattress between us seems an insurmountable gap, but I manage to reach out a hand and touch Boris’s shaking frame. I press my palm firmly against his sweater-clad back. Slowly I move my hand below the mass of red fabric and touch the skin of his back. His skin is hot to the touch.

“Boris look at me.” To my surprise, he doesn’t protest but gingerly cranes his neck to look.

I bring my hand up to brush over his forehead, pushing aside the curls. If possible the skin of his forehead is even hotter than his back had been. 

He does open his eyes now, but the simple act of focusing his dark gaze on me appears laborious. Even this simple action exhausts him. He huffs and rolls his eyes as he catches sight of my concerned expression.

“What. Why do you look like that?” He throws his hand out nearly whacking me in the face, “You feel bad for me now? You see that I am hurting everywhere now?” 

“Do you want something to drink?” He nods faintly.

Sitting up, I readjust the blankets to cover him. I pat his shoulder as I finish my work and slide off the bed. Before I am even out of the room I hear the telltale squeaks of the bedsprings and turn to find him wrestling with the sheets.

“Potter, I’m hot, I do not want these,” He shoves the blankets back off. His biting tone cuts me more than it should.

“Idiot, pochemu ty pokryvayesh' menya bol'shim kolichestvom odeyal, kogda mne zharko?” he mutters to himself, The word idiot is enough to set me off, I can infer the rest.

“Yeah, but you’ll end up cold eventually. That's how fevers work.”

His back is to me, but I know he is rolling his eyes at my words. 

I reach back over and tuck him in once more. Boris continues with his disgruntled noises, but remains still enough. 

The trek downstairs disquiets me. The households its breath. My parents have gone for some unspecified amount of time to some unspecified casino hotel combo. The characteristic shouting and over-loud games of football are absent. 

Little swaths of yellowish light from the streetlights slip inside and cut through the blue-dark, guiding me through the unnecessarily massive foyer and through the living room. Passing through the kitchen I glance down at the island, there lies a hundred bucks they had left for Boris and me. The wad of cash is the only clue to how long they will be gone. The detective now, I snatch up the wad of bills. They are still stiff with newness.

Last time they left me twenty dollars to make it through three weeks. The time before that I had almost a thousand for three days. So, maybe not so helpful of a clue.

The only cups clean enough to use are Xandras decorative thin-stemmed wine glasses. I consider grabbing some sort of snack, maybe bread, sugar too if I can find it in the dark, but I can hear Boris tossing about again. Squeaking sounds of the springs cut through the silence of the night; I ultimately decide to head back upstairs.

I hand off the glass and he snatches it with a jerking motion. He lifts it up to his trembling, cracked lips and hardly takes a sip before he is spitting it out.

“Water, Potter?!” He drags the back of his hand against his mouth as if I have tried to poison him. A cup of arsenic might have gotten a lighter response. 

I frown down at his delirious form, “Boris don’t be stupid-” 

“I am not. I asked for a drink and you bring me this?” he shoves his hand out, sloshing the water out of the cup and onto the bed. The dark spot of wet blooms rapidly on the sheets.

“Boris!” I reach for his unsteady wrist, but the damage is already done. I sigh, if he didn’t already seem so out of it, I might have hit him. 

I pull him roughly by the shoulders off the bed. He goes with a struggle, a stream of “nyet, nyet, Idiot!” and weakly thrown jabs.

“Look if you are sick, I don’t want you sleeping in a puddle. You’re gonna get chills.” 

I struggle to rid the bed of the wet sheets. Boris stands unsteadily behind me, arms hanging loose at his sides. He sways slightly, eyes glossed over. His dark irises roam over the dimly lit room aimlessly..

“You think I’m not? You think I’m lying?” 

“That's not what I-” I interrupt myself with an exasperated sigh, “You are being so difficult.”

He rolls his eyes at me, “I am not.”

“You are!”

“Am not.”

“Are to!”

“Am not!”

And then it hits me that we are really having this argument at two am. A laugh bursts out of me without my permission. Boris scowls at me and for a moment I think he might lunge at me; the start of a wrestling match, but he appears to change his mind. Boris starts removing his sweater; the fabric, heavy with wet, resists the pull of his hesitant grip. He has always been frighteningly thin, but today, he seems more emaciated than ever.

I watch him contort his body and ultimately fling the shirt across the room. 

“What?” He asks, perpetual pout now more pronounced.

“Nothing.”

It doesn't take me long to fix the bedding--Boris just stands and looks on--and we find ourselves comfortably entwined once more. Boris’s pale, exposed arm comes to wrap around my chest as it so often does. Though we start off comfortably, he eventually sweats so badly he relinquishes his hold on me and moves himself over.

The morning comes quickly but brings no respite. Boris refuses to move, refuses to eat, and obviously, refuses to go to school.

“D’you want me to stay with you?” I reach out blindly for my glasses and settle the cool frames on my face. I glance back at Boris, seeing him clearly now.

He appears to be biting the inside of his cheek, his lips pulled funny to one side of his fever blushed face. He merely glances up at me, but the absolute ire held in those dark eyes comes across clearly enough even in the dim light of morning.

“What do you think, Potter? Do I want to be home all by myself and suffer alone?”

“I was just asking. I’m staying, obviously” In truth, I was a little more than fed up with his attitude. He dissolves into a fit of coughs. His body shuddering, racked by dry wheezing coughs, he curls into himself.

“Good.” He mumbles once he is able to speak again.

I manage to lug him out of bed by around 2 in the afternoon. I support him as he trips his way down the stairs. He keeps up a steady stream of protests about his ankles and knees hurting the whole way. My hand firm against his side, I have to stop myself from counting his ribs--they are so pronounced beneath the mist of his skin. 

We must look like two injured soldiers the way we are leaning on each other. Or maybe like drowning men clinging to each other; his harshing breathing like the sputtering of a waterlogged man. His weight is easy enough to support and we make it the bottom of the stairs with little trouble.

His ankles twist funny every few steps, and I know I should be worried but all I can think about is how much his halting steps resemble a doe’s. 

We waste the whole afternoon lounging in front of the TV; his head rests on my thigh. He hardly moves, he breaths so shallow that I can hardly make out the rise and fall of his bare chest. Boris mutters insults at the actors and huffs out a small laugh every now and again but other than that he remains silent and unmoving. A few times he nuzzles his head against the fabric of my jeans; Boris doesn't stir at the little shivers that rack my body.

“We should eat something. Let me get up.” I say, still not looking down at him, eyes trained on the tv where some blonde lady in white screams and the murderer closes in on her with slow, hulking steps. I get no response from the boy on my lap.

“Boris?” Nothing. 

I look down at him. His dark eyelashes kiss the bruised tones of his dark circles, the harsher qualities of his expressions and animated effect have softened out, and his mouth, always spitting insults and crass words, has come to rest. I have seen Boris asleep before, but never in such direct light. And then there is the contrast between his anemic hue and my dark wash jeans-- 

I try to extricate myself slowly and carefully. He springs up and whips around to face me, eyes wide and wild now. 

“Where are you going?” He winces at the end of his question, his panicked expression falls away, and he brings a hand up to touch gingerly at his temple. He mouths “ow” and presses a little harder, eyes fluttering closed. 

“I was gonna make you a sandwich or something.”

“Why didn’t you ask me first?”

I cock my head and squint at him, “You were asleep.”

He lets his hand drop and shakes his head as if to shake off the pain, hair falling every which way. Clearly a mistake because he immediately draws his hand back up again.

“Well, Potter, you could have woken me up and asked.”

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“I am not.” 

“Fine, whatever, I’m sorry. D’you want me to make you something or not?” I punctuate my sentences by roughly shoving my glasses up the bridge of my nose.

“I’m not hungry.”

I sigh loudly as I pull myself up off the floor, “Boris you're impossible.”

“I am not, ‘Impossible’ I simply ask that you tell me before you get up! You said you would stay!”

“Boris, I was just walking to the kitchen!” My voice is just shy of a shout. Boris presses his hand more firmly to the side of his head. 

“Yes? and is so hard to wait and ask?” He mutters the moment I turn my back to him.

For a second it seems as if we are going to have a rehash of last night's argument when Boris’s face goes slack, he lifts the back of his hand to his mouth, rises quickly to shaky feet, takes a step forward, and pukes all over the rug.

“Fuck!” I jump up and take him by the shoulders and walk him to the bathroom. I shoulder open the door all the while still supporting Boris. I kick the childish turquoise bath mat towards the toilet and help Boris kneel down on it. I hope the plush thing might be kinder to his constantly bruised knees than the checkered tile floor. 

The clinical lighting in the bathroom and the whitewashed walls do little to lessen the panic building in my chest. The light probably worsens Boris’s headache, I consider turning them off, but before I can stand and cross the fairly small room, I feel a soft tugging on my sleeve. 

“I think I am really, really sick, Potter” This is followed by Boris violently retching. 

“No shit!” 

He gives a weak laugh at that, only for his expression to sour with the onset of a new pain. 

His hands, white-knuckled, grip the porcelain seat of the toilet. He breathes heavily, his lips tremble with each inhale. Not a moment later his body convulses again and he spills the contents of his stomach once more. I bring my hand tentatively to his sweat-slicked forehead and push his curls out of the way. He flicks his eyes up as I do so and something in me flutters. 

He might have tried to mumble a thank you, but the words are swallowed up as he jerks forward again, the taut skin of his stomach visibly spasming. 

“I should have eaten something. It is just fucking bile. Tastes like fucking acid,” a full-body shudder and another convulsion. 

Drawn up to his ears, the sharp points of his shoulders cast strange and unnatural shadows across his face. 

Boris falls silent for a few moments, chest expanding and contracting evenly, flush falling away. His hand furthest from me blindly grasps out towards the edge of the sink. He gets a hold of the white porcelain ledge and attempts to raise himself off the floor.

“I think I am okay now-” his face visibly sickens, paling and going slack, and I jump up to help him back down. 

Throughout the next few waves of illness, I keep a hand on his back, rubbing mindless circles against the hot skin. He stills, muscles unclenching, but the release of tension is short-lived.

A choking sound echoes in the small space. It sounds as if it came from the very horror movie we had been watching; the title and empty walls compound the sickening sound. 

Boris, upon catching his breath looks down, and then back up to me, eyes wide as if he has just witnessed a death. 

“It’s all blood Potter. I think it’s all blood.”

I peer down and sure enough, It is blood. Scarlet, like some technicolor rendition of reality. It hardly looks real, the alien redness.

I glance back up at his panic-stricken face and see the trembling of his rubied lips. He raises a hand and attempts to clean up the massacre sight. When he drops his hand, a new spring starts up; his nose is bleeding.

“Jesus fuck!” I start balling up toilet paper and press it up against his nose. It bleeds worse than the last time he had broken it.

“We need a fucking ambulance! Jesus! Did you fucking do anything? Are you taking anything new?” I say looking about frantically.

I attempt to hold him still to dab at the blood now running down his chin. He vigorously shakes himself, trying to rid himself of me.

“What? No! You can not call an ambulance! I hate the hospital. If you put me there I will never forgive you.”

“But-”

He failed in his first attempt to throw me off. This time he succeeds. Steadying himself on the edge of the sink with his clammy hands, Boris draws labored breaths.

“Why blood, Potter? Blyad, Why is it blood? I’m bleeding inside, people die from that Theo. I know it’s true, I know-”

He pushes off from the sink and floats unsteady and unsure in the vast ocean of empty space. I shoot out a hand and grasp at his wrist, but he resists. All the while an unending chant bubbles up from his raw throat, “Why blood? Why is it blood?”

I try once more to grab at him, and this time my hand meets his boney wrist. We sink to the floor together. A wave of relief rushes through me, at least now I don't have to worry about him passing out and whacking his head on the side of the sink. 

He sits, gangly and curled inward, just out of reach, his knees drawn up to his chest.

He shakes slightly, the little tremors visible in the slight bounce of his curls. His jaw clenches tight in a fruitless effort to stop the violent shivers that rack his body. 

I slide myself over towards him. I coax him toward me until I hold his heaving body against mine. His damp forehead fits comfortably in the crook of my neck and his hot breath wafts across my skin, a cascade of tingles. His nose continues bleeding, the warm red drips soil my shirt. 

When he finally sits up again, he pokes at the bloodied part of my shirt. The first tentative touch comes as nothing more than an uncertain brush on his fingertips along the ruddied fabric, but as he mumbles on and on about blood and illness the touch morphs into a punishing digging.

“Mine,” he mumbles. The only word I can make out among his ramblings.

He sits swaying slightly, blood still runs from his nose and pools grotesquely on the pristine title floor in front of him. 

“Will you take me upstairs? I’m exhausted.” His pleading eyes train on me with a clarity that shocks me; such perfect English from his feverish haze.

The bleeding stops soon after, but the newest pain arrives in the form of chills. Chills that twist and contort his whole body. Chills that toss him about and bring sweat to his brow. 

I sit at the foot of the bed —springs noisy as ever under Boris’s writhing— typing away on Xandra’s laptop. The bright pink decals on the keys slow my typing, Each letter a little jammed. 

“Throwing up blood,” “chills” “causes of throwing up blood,”

None of the results prove useful. All of them say the best course of action is to contact a doctor. And, seeing as I wasn’t physically able to drag Boris out of the house, even in his current state, a hospital visit was out of the question.

I suppose I could call 911; The image of the heavy ambulance crawling it’s way up the sandy street, wheels kicking up dust and choking the air. The dismal wail of the siren fails to die down as it approaches the house, it reverberates and echoes through the dead street. Next comes the pounding at the door, and my heartbeat would kick in time with each leaden thump of a fist on the wood. They would haul him out. And somehow I just know they would drag him too roughly, pull his wrists too hard, their unpracticed touches would hurt. He would scream the whole way, I know that too.

They would shut those heavy white doors on me, “next of kin only” and I would try to make them understand what we are. I wouldn't have the words. No one would hold his hand through the ride. No one would brush the damp hair from his forehead. No one would mutter sloppy Russian platitudes with their head on his heaving chest that they had picked up from the odd guidebook or two. 

Boris goes completely still beside me, yet he has started up a steady stream of muttering. 

“Yesli ya umru, mne zhal'. YA ne khochu, chtoby ty byl odin.” He says, “Potter,” he calls out. I set the laptop down on the bed and side closer to him. I place a hand on his forehead.

He huffs a laugh at my gesture, “Ty vedesh' sebya kak mama. Mne eto seychas ne nuzhno, u menya yego nikogda ne bylo.”

“Boris, if you need something, you have to ask in English,” I say, yet he isn’t looking at me. 

“YA dolzhen ischerpat' tebya.” He mumbles. 

“Boris,” I say gently, leaning over to squeeze his shoulder, “I don’t understand. If you need something, you have to ask in English.”

“Is just sorry.” He yawns, “I’m just saying sorry.” He turns over and I see the pillow is stained red. 

“Fuck, Boris, come here,” I drag him to the bathroom, the whole time he continues babbling. He seems delirious. 

By the time I get him to the bathroom, we have tracked a trail of blood through the halls, the little droplets litter the white carpeted floor. 

I sit him down on the edge of the tub and start running the water. The sound fills the room. Boris gazes listlessly down at the water. I turn from the faucet and kneel down in front of him and start pulling off his socks. He pokes me in the shoulder with his barefoot and does the other himself.

“Why a bath?”

“I looked it up, it’s good for a fever.”

He finally manages to hold eye contact with me, “I’ll ruin the water.” He wipes at his chin and then under his nose. 

“Take your pants off.”

“Dinner first?” he pauses, “Is that the joke?” He laughs to himself but gets to work soon enough. Boris tosses the pants across the room; his underwear soon following the same trajectory. I help him stand and step into the tub. My heart beats in my throat; I’m half petrified with fear that he will slip. 

He sits in the bath until the water goes tepid and the bleeding stops. I keep up a dialogue with him to be sure he won’t fall asleep in the tub. He flicks at the water every so often, but mostly he sits still; knees out to either side, spine curled, feet touching.

I sit him on the edge of the tub and he shivers himself to pieces while I work to towel off his legs; his foot rests on my knee as I half-kneel before him. I'm surprised how light they are and how smooth. If I didn’t look up I would swear they were a girl’s. I towel off his shoulders and toss the towel over his head and ruffle it until I'm sure his hair is dry as well. 

I watch the sunset from a tiny window in my father's bathroom. The sound of the clattering plastic bottles just barely keeps the silence at bay. Turning to the third and final possible storage place--a small bin on the marble countertop--I hear a deep groan from a few paper-thin walls over. 

“I’ll be back in a minute!” 

I open cabinet after cabinet and find nothing. I pick up bottle after countless bottle of brightly labeled pills and turn each over in my hand; each time I am disappointed. Again, I itch to pick up the phone. 

I imagine our being separated, CPS whisking me away to bizarre brunches again, my life being thrown into chaos. And while living with Xandra and my father certainly doesn’t bring me pleasure, it is a suffering and a discomfort I am familiar with. Perhaps one that I could build up a callus against. Boris had in his situation. My father never hit me. 

I turn over bottle number 23, the image of a crescent moon sits just above the nonsense name, “zzZleepy.” 

___

“Boris, take it.”

“I need a drink to take it with.”

“Water then.”

He scowls up at me, the look hardly shakes me, seeing as he reclines buried in mounds of sheets up to his chin.

“Boris, if you drink, you'll puke again.”

“You don’t know that.” He coughs then. 

I move to sit on the corner of the bed and glancing down I notice I still have on the stained shirt. I wrestle my way out of it and toss it across the room, watching the arch of it’s decent. The image of Icarus skips across my mind; bloody body arching, terra bound. Another cough pulls me from my thoughts.

“I do know. I looked it up. Do you want to sleep or not.”

“Fine, fucking give them to me.” He shoots a hand out and takes the pills from me. He swallows dry.

He turns roughly over, his motion jars the mattress, and all its horrid springs into a fit of whines and squeaks. For a moment I sit in the quiet not-quite dark and listen to Boris breath. I let my mind wander back to Icarus. 

The silence stretches for minutes maybe, and though I know the sky must be going though it's daily extravagant death beyond the window behind me, I feel no urge to turn and look. That is until I hear the almost whisper of my name behind me. 

Boris still has his back to me, but he has turned down the sheets inviting me into the empty space beside him. 

He reaches a hand behind him to pat at the spot blindly.

I cannot help my small smile. I take his wordless offer. 

Sliding under the covers I am met with sweltering heat. Boris is burning up, he must be. Closer to him now, I can smell his sweat, a familiar, weighty scent.

“Boris, you're gonna make the fever worse,” I say, pushing off some blankets and exposing his bare shoulders to the cool air of the room. Goosebumps arise soon after, and I can see the fine hairs on his arm standing on end. I extend a hand and press the pads of my fingers against the hot seer of his skin.

“I’m freezing.” He still hadn’t turned to face me, “I thought you said the blankets are because I would feel cold. I feel cold now.”

“Do you- would you want me to hold you?” I say and the words come halting and even though he faces the wall, I turn my head as I speak.

“Don’t,”

“Don’t?” I hadn’t been expecting a no, I freeze in my tracks, retract my previously exploratory hand. Yet, in the same instant I pull myself away he turns to me, his eyes suddenly lucid. He purses his lips and swallows.

“Do not say it. Do, but don’t say it. You never ask, I never ask,” He tilts his head towards me, a question, looking for confirmation.

“So-”

“Ssh.” He presses the silencing finger against my desert-air dried lips.

And, without much discussion, he slides closer to me and slips one slim arm around my waist and pulls me towards him, he stills then. An invitation to reciprocate the touch. 

I mirror his motion and wrap an arm around him, my elbow knocking against his hip bone.  
His skin near burns me despite the fact he doesn’t stop muttering about how freezing he is. I press an open palmed hand against his chest and feel his heart beating, slow, steady, and sure. 

I inhale deeply hoping to stall the rapid skipping of my heart, but I am met with his particular scent--blunt, suffocating cigarette smoke; acrid sweet booze; tanginess of sweat. My heart trips over itself. 

I can feel his gaze. I can’t look up.

His hand slides from my waist to my back and he settles his chin atop my head and sighs.

“What are you thinking about?” I can tell he wants to ask something, the slow meandering motion of his hand having stopped its cyclical track. 

“Hm… death, I think.”

“Morbid.”

“Yes, yes I think so,” Boris says, and I can feel the vibrations of his low laugh.

“You won’t die tonight, if that’s what you're worried about, I’ll watch you.” His arms tighten around me, I follow suit. Our legs meet and entangle without either of us having intended it.

“You will be tired then. In the morning.” He says.

I gaze over his shoulder out the window for a moment and count the stars in view, but those dots seem so far away. I lose count easily. I glance down to the soft point of Boris’s shoulder; there I find tiny freckles. I count those instead, seven clearly in view.

“So?”

I feel that vibration against me again. 

“So, you’ll be tired. I will feel bad tomorrow when I see you all exhausted. We have no coffee.”

“Boris, I’ll nap during the day, shut up and go to bed.”

“I feel bad. I’ve been bad to you all day. You bring me pills and I argue. I ruined your rug. You are too nice to me. Too good. You let me- how do you say- walk all over you.”

I press my blunt nails harshly into his back.

“Ow! Blyad'!” he jerks in my arms but doesn’t pull away from me. Just writhes and hisses under my burrowing nails but refuses to turn out of my hold. I drag my nails down his back just a few inches and listen to his small, pained sounds.

“See, I’m not too nice.”

“You hardly hurt me.”

“Do you want me too?” I say, a light joke, but Boris doesn't answer right away.

He considers a moment. Making a contented “hmm” sound as he thinks, “not sure.”

I dig my nails into the softest part of his arm and he winces, squinting at me, this time he does let out a little bark of a laugh, “Okay, no, I am sure.”

“But you are distracting me. I was saying that I have been… difficult. I am very hard to look after. Awful work.”

“It’s not that bad. Not if it’s you.”

His breath against my neck, we lull each other to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you caught my references to certain greek works, kudos to you!
> 
> I have no editor, so let me know if you catch anything.
> 
> Come cry with me on Tumblr!  
> @somethingmissingthings


End file.
